6. Gabriel
GAbrIEL
Her breath was coming out in short, quick bursts. Her fingers were still fisted in my shirt. I could feel her heartbeat through her palms where they pressed against my chest, and the last thread of control I’d been holding since the morning of the fire snapped clean.
I kissed her again. Deeper this time, slower, my hand sliding from her hip to the small of her back and pulling her flush against me.
She was warm through the thin cotton of her shirt, and every place her body pressed against mine—her chest, her stomach, her thighs against the rough canvas of my turnout pants—registered like a brand.
I walked her backward. She went willingly, her hands climbing from my chest to my shoulders, her mouth opening under mine, and when her back hit the hallway wall she made a sound—a soft, caught breath—that went straight through me.
My mouth moved to her jaw. Her neck. The spot below her ear where her pulse was hammering.
She arched into me and her fingers dug into my shoulders and I groaned against her throat—couldn’t stop it, didn’t try—and fisted the fabric at her hip because if I didn’t anchor myself somewhere I was going to lose what was left of my restraint.
“Not the bedroom,” Brenna said against my mouth.
I pulled back enough to look at her. Her eyes were dark, her lips swollen, her chest rising and falling fast. I waited.
She tipped her head toward the end of the hallway. The kitchen was right there—a few steps past the living room, the half wall dividing it from the rest of the apartment, and tucked against that half wall was a small oak table she’d refinished herself, solid and well-built.
“The table,” she said.
Something in me shifted. The careful, measured version of myself—the one who’d pulled back in the truck, who’d chosen his moment, who’d been deliberate about every step—burned off. What replaced it was simple and clear and entirely focused on the woman in front of me.
I lifted her. Hands under her thighs, her legs wrapping around my waist, her arms locking around my neck. She weighed nothing. I carried her the three steps to the kitchen and set her on the edge of the table and stepped between her knees and looked down at her.
Her hair was loose around her shoulders. Her lips were parted. Her eyes were on mine—steady, certain, not a trace of hesitation.
“You’re sure,” I said.
Not a question. A checkpoint. One last off-ramp before I stopped being careful.
She pulled my shirt over my head and put her hands flat on my chest. Her palms were warm, her fingers spread wide, and she looked up at me with an expression that emptied every thought from my brain except one.
“I’m sure.”
I kissed her hard, my tongue sliding against hers as I stripped her shirt off and tossed it aside. My hand found the clasp at her back and flicked it open one-handed. She shrugged the straps down her arms and let it fall.
Then my hands were on her bare skin—full, soft breasts that fit perfectly in my palms, her nipples already tight little peaks against my thumbs. She moaned into my mouth, arching up, pressing herself closer.
I dropped to my knees between her spread thighs right there on the edge of the table. My hands grasped her shorts, and I dragged those and her underwear down her legs, letting them fall to the floor. She was glistening, pink and perfect, and the sight made my cock throb painfully against my pants.
“Fuck, Brenna,” I growled, voice rough. “Look at this pretty little pussy. So wet for me already.”
I leaned in and licked along her folds. She cried out, her hips jerking. I did it again, then sealed my mouth over her clit and sucked gently while my tongue flicked against her. She tasted sweet and musky, addictive. Her hands flew to my hair, gripping tight as she whimpered and moaned my name.
“Oh God—yes—right there?—”
I groaned against her, the vibration making her thighs tremble. I licked and sucked, devouring her, sliding one thick finger inside her tight heat and curling it just right. She was so fucking responsive, grinding against my face, her breath coming in sharp, broken sobs.
Then she tensed, her fingers tightening in my hair. “Wait—Gabriel—I need to tell you something,” she gasped, tugging me up just enough to meet my eyes.
I pulled back, lips shiny with her, chest heaving. “What, baby?”
Her cheeks were flushed deep red, eyes glassy with need, but she held my gaze. “I’m… I’m a virgin.”
I froze, stunned. The words hit me like a hose line to the chest. Virgin. This brave, careful woman had never let anyone else have her. Surprise rolled through me, followed by a fierce, possessive surge of heat that made my cock jerk.
“Fuck,” I breathed, staring at her. “You’re serious?”
She nodded, biting her lip. “I wanted it to be you.”
Something primal unlocked in my chest. I surged up and kissed her deeply, letting her taste herself on my tongue. “Then I’m going to make this so fucking good for you, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
I dropped back down and attacked her with renewed hunger.
Two fingers now, pumping slowly while I sucked her clit hard.
She came with a loud, shattered cry, her thighs clamping around my head, back bowing off the table as she pulsed and flooded my mouth.
I didn’t stop until she was shaking and whimpering, riding every wave.
I stood, unclipped the suspenders, and shoved the heavy canvas pants and my briefs down past my hips. My cock sprang free, heavy and aching, the head already slick. Her eyes widened at the sight of me, but she reached for me anyway.
I stepped between her thighs, rubbing the thick head of my cock up and down her soaked folds. “Gonna go slow, baby. Tell me if it hurts.”
I pushed in just the tip, and holy fuck—she was impossibly tight, hot velvet gripping me like a fist. I groaned loud and low, fighting the urge to thrust deep.
“Jesus Christ, Brenna. So fucking tight. Your little virgin pussy is strangling my cock.”
She moaned, nails digging into my shoulders. Inch by careful inch, I sank into her, watching her face for any sign of pain. She was breathing fast, lips parted, but her eyes stayed locked on mine, full of trust and heat.
“That’s it…taking me so well,” I rasped, voice wrecked. “Halfway in, baby. You feel that? Feel how deep I am?”
When I finally buried myself to the hilt, I had to stop and breathe. The sensation was overwhelming—her walls fluttering and squeezing around every inch of me. I stilled for a moment, both of us panting.
“Move,” she whispered. “Please, Gabriel.”
I started slow, rocking into her with long, careful strokes. The wet, obscene sound of me sliding in and out of her filled the kitchen, mixed with our moans and gasps. She wrapped her legs tighter around my waist, heels digging into my ass.
“Harder,” she begged. “I can take it.”
“Greedy girl,” I growled, thrusting a little deeper. “This pussy was made for my cock. So fucking perfect.”
Then she did something that nearly ended me.
Her hand slid down between us. I watched, stunned, as her fingers found her clit and started rubbing tight, frantic circles.
The sight of it—her touching herself while my thick cock stretched her open, sliding in and out of her—hit me harder than anything I’d ever seen.
Her pussy clenched around me even tighter, slick sounds growing louder.
“Fuck—Brenna,” I groaned, the words torn from my throat. “Look at you. Playing with that pretty clit while I fuck you. That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. You’re gonna make me come so hard.”
She whimpered, fingers moving faster, eyes half-lidded in pleasure. “You feel so good…so big inside me. Don’t stop—please?—”
I fucked her deeper, still careful but losing rhythm, my hips snapping forward. The pressure built fast and brutal. Every time her fingers brushed the base of my cock where we were joined, I saw stars.
“Come on my cock, baby,” I demanded, voice rough and filthy. “Want to feel this pussy come all over me.”
She came again with a loud, broken moan, her walls clamping down on me in rhythmic pulses.
The feeling—her coming while touching herself, while I was buried inside her—was too much.
I thrust through it, groaning her name, and followed her over the edge.
I came so hard my vision whited out, pulsing deep inside her as pleasure ripped through me in heavy waves.
We stayed locked together, breathing the same air, my cock still twitching inside her as the last aftershocks rolled through us.
I don’t know how long we stood like that—her on the table, me between her legs, both of us breathing hard and not moving and not speaking. My hands were on her thighs, thumbs tracing absent circles on her skin. Her fingers were still tangled in the hair at the back of my neck.
The kitchen was quiet. A candle she’d left burning on the counter had melted down to a low pool of wax, throwing soft, uneven light across the ceiling. Through the window over the sink, the sky had gone fully dark.
I pressed my lips to her forehead. Her temple. The bridge of her nose. Slow and deliberate—committing every part of her to memory.
“You okay?”
My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. Low and rough and stripped of everything I usually kept in place.
She smiled against my jaw. “Better than okay.”
I pulled back to look at her, and whatever she saw in my face made her expression change—her eyes softened, her lips parted, and she looked at me like she was seeing something I didn’t usually let people see.
The hard edges I wore—at the fire scene, at the diner, at the cookout, on every call for the last fourteen years—were gone. I’d let them go. For her, I’d let them go.
“Stay,” she said. Different from the first time. Quieter. Steadier. Not a plea. An invitation.
I tucked a curl behind her ear. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I lifted her off the table and she wrapped her arms around my neck. I carried her the short distance to the bedroom. I pulled back the covers and laid her down and climbed in beside her and curved my body around hers, my chest against her back, my arm across her waist.
Her breathing slowed before mine did. I lay there listening to it—even and deep, the breathing of a woman who felt safe—and pressed my face into her hair and let the certainty of it sink in.
This wasn’t falling. I’d already fallen. Somewhere between the smoke and the curb and the diner and the cookout and the hallway where she’d fisted her hands in my shirt and said stay—I’d landed. There was no version of my life that made sense without her in it.
I closed my eyes and let her breathing under my palm be the last thing I felt before I slept.